Riney Stuck In Subway Ad Fight

A fight between Subway Sandwiches & Salads and its franchisees over how Subway's $100 million ad budget should be allocated has battered Hal Riney & Partners/Heartland, Chicago.

In one corner are the company and consultant Kenneth Armstrong, who are pushing to spend the entire ad budget on national media, eliminating the $40 million Subway spends on local ads.

On the opposing side are a number of franchisees, who have brought in the Television Bureau of Advertising and are lobbying to move the full budget to local agencies, eliminating $60 million spent on the national level.

TENSIONS BOIL OVER

Tensions boiled over when Riney was asked in the spring to create a media plan to bring all spending national. Anger about the plan, combined with franchisee dissatisfaction with Riney's creative, combined to throw the account into review last week.

"Riney was just a funnel [and franchisees] found it guilty by as sociation," said Joe Hart, a franchisee in Atlanta and chairman of Subway's Franchise Advertising Fund Trust. The trust is an independent

12-member board of franchisees who administer ad funds accrued from

operators contributing 2.5% of weekly sales.

RESPONSE TO GROWTH

A company spokeswoman said the review is in response only to Subway's

quick growth, rather than any controversy surrounding Riney, which was